UCSF Team Wins 14th Annual AMCP P&T Competition

It was all sunshine and smiles in Tampa, Florida for the UCSF Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) team as they took home first place in the 14th Annual AMCP P&T Competition on April 4.

The team, consisting of Edna Cheung (P1), Randal Du (P3), Isabel Fong (P1) and Thomas Lee (P2), accepted the honor and $2500 scholarship with faculty advisor, Glen Yokoyama before the cheers, roar, and tears of their UCSF family. The money will be contributed to the school’s general scholarship fund.

The celebration quickly spread to UCSF after Dean Joseph Guglielmo, who had given the team a pre-competition pep talk via phone, proudly shared the achievement with all pharmacy students, faculty and staff.

“We could not thank the school enough times for everyone’s tremendous support,” said Edna Cheung. “They believed in us more than I believed in myself!”

Adding to the accomplishment, this win also marks the first time UCSF has nabbed back-to-back first place finishes.

As one of the top eight finalists selected to compete live, the UCSF P&T team presented and defended their formulary decision for Eylea® for a hypothetical health plan. The other finalists were Rutgers University, University of Washington, University of Illinois at Chicago (third place), Western University of Health Sciences, Loma Linda University, University of the Pacific and University of Southern California (second place).

The AMCP P&T Competition is a unique opportunity for a four-person team of pharmacy students to simulate the actions of an actual P&T committee. In hospitals and health plans, the P&T committee manages the formulary—a list of medications that will be covered—through evaluation of drugs’ safety, efficacy and economic profile. While actual P&T committees are interdisciplinary in nature and have greater access to information, the students often produce quality results that rival the actual committees.

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